Fite Albert

The rain poured in torrents.

Guo Shuai lay prone in the muddy grass, staring at the Humvee ahead.

When he saw the guns scattered beside the stark white skeletons, he didn't loot them like the little rats.

Instead...

He instinctively took half a step back.

"Something's off..."

Guo Shuai narrowed his eyes as rainwater streamed down his cheeks.

The armbands on the corpses were torn, but he recognized the Cherry Blossom Country's rising sun flag at a glance.

"A fully armed special forces squad... with heavy machine guns and sniper rifles, and they were wiped out in an instant?"

"And there's barely a trace of resistance. Even the guns are brand-new..."

The sheer wrongness of it made Guo Shuai's scalp crawl.

His subconscious Danger Sense hadn't gone off yet, but the primal fear in his bones was screaming wildly.

Run!

There's something terrifying here!

Guo Shuai gritted his teeth. His heels were already lifting slightly, ready to turn and run.

But then Jiangnan's words—"My team doesn't need dead weight"—stabbed him straight in the heart.

"No!"

Guo Shuai abruptly stopped himself, his expression turning fierce.

"I can't leave!"

"I'm the scout! I'm the eyes of the team!"

"If I run away before even getting through the door, how could I ever face the boss again?"

"How could I ever take Old Yang around to see the whole world?!"

"At least... at least I have to bring back something useful!"

"I have to find out if the Signal Tower is here!"

To hell with it!

Guo Shuai took a deep breath. He trusted his Danger Sense and that Eye of Calamity, even if it was a bit of a pain.

Fortune favors the bold!

Keeping low and using the curtain of rain for cover, he quickly crept toward the Humvee.

Teaching Building, second floor, Class 3-2.

"Tsk, tsk..."

Lu Shiyan stood by the window, holding a military binoculars. The cigarette between his lips glowed and dimmed.

"Another one with a death wish."

Through the lenses, Guo Shuai's bedraggled but determined figure was clearly visible.

"Looks like he's after those guns beside your compatriots."

Lu Shiyan shook his head. "Men die for wealth, just as birds die for food."

Hoshino kept her head down, still immersed in the sorrow of being hated by her compatriots. She didn't say a word.

"Boring."

Lu Shiyan lowered the binoculars and was about to turn away.

Yekaterina, who had been leaning against the window on the other side, had also noticed Guo Shuai.

Her blue eyes suddenly changed. Her pupils contracted into long, narrow golden slits.

She stared at a spot in the rain, her red lips parting.

"They're here."

At the school gate.

The rain grew heavier, pounding against the roof of the vehicle.

Guo Shuai had reached the bodies.

He moved swiftly, first grabbing the NG-7 machine gun from the ground and slinging it around his neck.

Then he reached for the fully kitted M416 beside Ono's corpse.

His eyes flicked to the High Explosive Grenades on the corpse's tactical vest.

"I've struck it rich..."

The instant his fingers touched the gun's body—

In the rain, a figure hid within the falling droplets, leaping from one to another through the refraction of light!

Moving at a speed impossible for the human eye to catch, it shot toward the back of Guo Shuai's head!

At that very moment—

Bzzzz!

Guo Shuai's Danger Sense went off the charts! Red lights flashed!

The chill of death was stronger than ever before!

Before his brain could even issue a command—

The Eye of Calamity, dormant in his left eye socket, seemed to have been violently provoked. It activated on its own!

[Warning! Warning!]

[Detected lethal-level threat to life! Host reaction too slow!]

[Forced control of body! Automatic counterattack mode activated!]

The next moment—

Guo Shuai felt his soul shoved into a corner.

Without a single muscle tensing in preparation, his body made a movement that defied human anatomy.

Facing forward, he instantly threw himself into a rapid backflip!

In midair, his body hung upside down. The M416 in his hands and the machine gun around his neck both swung up.

He fired furiously into the rain ahead of where he had been standing!

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

At the same time, his teeth caught the pull ring of a grenade on his tactical vest.

Clink!

He jerked his neck, sending the grenade flying toward the rain like a cannonball!

He landed, rolled, sprang up, and sprinted!

The whole sequence flowed like water, so fast he was little more than a blur.

Boom!!

A violent explosion erupted behind him. Flames swallowed the rain in that area.

The Danger Sense alarm abruptly fell silent.

That entire moment had lasted just 1.4 seconds!

"Wh... what the hell?"

Guo Shuai had already sprinted dozens of meters. He was completely dumbfounded.

His brain couldn't keep up with his body at all.

All he knew was that something invisible had just tried to kill him.

And to save his life, his left eye had gone into "emergency response mode."

"Where's the monster? Where's the information?"

As he ran under its control, Guo Shuai shouted inwardly.

But the Eye of Calamity ignored him completely.

Instead, it controlled his legs as if they were fitted with motors, charging downhill without looking back.

Just then—

Bzz!

His Danger Sense went off again!

Guo Shuai turned around in terror, but saw nothing except the rain pouring from the sky!

Only after he raced all the way to the bottom of the slope and left the school grounds did the alarm in his mind finally disappear.

[Threat eliminated.]

[Automatic counterattack complete. Body control returned.]

"Haah... haah..."

Guo Shuai dropped into the muddy water, panting heavily, his heart nearly leaping out of his throat.

But then, an inexplicable anger flared up.

He was afraid of the unknown monster, sure—but even more than that, he was furious that the eyeball had taken control of his body without permission!

What was this supposed to be?

Was he the host, or a puppet?!

"Do you fucking have a mind of your own?!"

Guo Shuai roared at the empty air like a lunatic. "Come out! Quit playing dead!"

But the Eye of Calamity didn't respond at all, as if the whole thing had been a hallucination.

"Fine... playing dead, are you?"

Guo Shuai laughed in fury, a touch of madness flashing in his eyes.

"First you treated the boss and Wang Meng differently depending on who they were, then you let me lie there like a maggot while you handed me a win. Now you act on your own and won't even give me any intel!"

"Did you really think I was made of clay?!"

He sprang to his feet, grabbed the machine gun, and turned toward the school on the hill.

"Fine! You won't talk?"

"Then we're going back! I'll go deliver takeout to that monster myself! We can all die here together!!"

With that, he really did stride back, charging toward the school as if ready to face death.

One step, two steps, three...

Just as he was about to re-enter the danger zone—

The Eye of Calamity, which had been playing dead, finally couldn't take it anymore.

It was terrified of dying!

What was wrong with this host? Was he insane?!

"Wait, wait! Stop! Stop right now!!"

An old voice, flustered and furious, rang out in Guo Shuai's mind.

"This god admits defeat, all right?! It was my fault! I shouldn't have messed with you! Please don't go any farther, you little ancestor!!"

Guo Shuai stopped and sneered.

"Hmph! Now you admit defeat?"

"Weren't you so cocky just now? What's with the aloof system act?"

"What a coward!"

The voice clearly didn't want to argue with this lunatic, and hurriedly played along.

"Yes, yes! This god is a coward! The biggest coward in the entire Barbaric Realm!"

"Please, just go back! Don't go running into danger! We can't fight that monster! It'll eat us!"

"Can't fight it?"

Guo Shuai refused to back down, standing his ground as he threatened it.

"Then give me the monster's information! I want to see what the hell it is! Otherwise, I'm walking forward!"

"Oh, you brat!"

The old voice was full of helplessness.

"It's not that I won't tell you. That thing is just too damn sneaky!"

"It hides inside every raindrop as it falls! I can't lock onto it and scan it directly!"

"Unless the rain stops or it reveals its true form, I can't see through its status panel!"

"Raindrops?"

Guo Shuai was startled.

No wonder he hadn't been able to see anything. It had been hiding in the rain.

How the hell was he supposed to fight that?

He took a deep breath and asked the most important question.

"Then what's going on with you? Why did Sister Liu identify you as a Weird Artifact before, but now you're a chatterbox?"

At that question, the old voice immediately turned smug.

"Hmph, that little girl's Appraisal Technique?"

"It works pretty well on dead things. Even I wanted it. But it's pretty useless on living things, because there's a lot of room to work around it!"

"Not to mention me!"

"This god roamed the Barbaric Realm for over a thousand years. People revered me as a god. I was the greatest wizard of all!"

"Fite Albert!!"

"What?!"

Guo Shuai's eyes widened. "You're called Fite Albert?!"

"Hmph, mortal."

Fite spoke smugly. "Well? Were you scared by my thunderous name? Tremble!"

But—

The expected worship never came.

The next second—

"Pfft..."

Guo Shuai couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing in the rain.

"Hahahaha! Scared? Yeah, I was definitely scared!"

"I just never expected that the reason a great demon who created an S-class BOSS came into being was..."

Guo Shuai's expression turned wonderfully animated as he said, with vivid relish,

"Because some dog of a man and woman exposed a certain deity's childhood embarrassment at their wedding, in front of everyone!"

"Hahahaha! That's even more ridiculous than Fang Yuan selling his ass! I'm dying!"

The diary Jiangnan had thrown into the trash can later became reading material for the people in the car whenever they were bored.

Guo Shuai, in particular, had read it most carefully after having that eye implanted—even the punctuation hadn't escaped him.

"..."

The voice in his mind vanished at once.

Right after, Guo Shuai felt his left eye socket grow scorching hot, like a kettle coming to a boil.

It was turning red with rage.

The imposing aura he'd had just moments ago shattered all over the floor, not a scrap left.

Fite got so angry he let out an angry huff, then pulled down his eyelid and unilaterally cut off their connection. He shut himself away and went on strike.

"Tch. What a sore loser."

Guo Shuai didn't bother with him anymore.

He'd already gotten all the intel he needed—and he'd even scored a machine gun, a fully kitted-out rifle, and a few grenades for free.

A huge win.

"Now I should be able to explain things to the boss."

Guo Shuai grinned, wiped the rain from his face, slung his gun over his shoulder, and took off running.

Inside Class 3-2.

Lu Shiyan lowered the binoculars, and the smile had already shifted to Guo Shuai's face.

"That guy..."

Watching Guo Shuai's nimble figure flee, he couldn't help but marvel.

"He's actually a deeply hidden expert?"

"Not only are his reflexes absurdly fast, he even escaped the Hungry Ghost's sneak attack without a scratch."

"And he even swiped two guns on the way out..."

Beside him, Yekaterina withdrew her slit pupils, her gaze turning more serious.

"He's probably a high-level perception- or reflex-type Supernatural Ability user."

"His rank... is at least A-Class."

The two exchanged a glance, each seeing the wariness in the other's eyes.

Lu Shiyan lit another cigarette and sighed.

"Good thing he ran fast. He didn't get eaten by the Hungry Ghost or stupidly charge into the school."

"Otherwise..."

He blew out a smoke ring, his eyes drifting toward the depths of the corridor behind them.

"We'd have even more trouble on our hands~"

Hoshino, who had been huddled off to the side, hadn't been able to see exactly what was happening through the rain.

But she'd heard the loud crash and gunshots just now, clear as day.

Mustering her courage, she asked,

"Mr. Lu... Miss Yekaterina..."

"That person seems really strong...and you're both strong too..."

"If you aren't afraid of the monster outside, why... don't you leave the school?"

In her eyes, they could just fight their way out.

Lu Shiyan and Yekaterina smiled at the same time.

Their smiles were tinged with helplessness and desolation.

"Little girl."

Lu Shiyan turned around and looked at the innocent newcomer.

"Didn't I tell you?"

"There isn't just one ghost here..."

As he spoke, Lu Shiyan opened his trench coat at the collar, exposing his neck.

Yekaterina also rolled up her sleeve, revealing her snow-white arm.

On both their skin—

There was a mark radiating Black Qi.

It was a face...

Twisted in agony, screaming.